Using my words

Sometimes having your kids quote you can be embarrassing. Tonight, William cracked me up. He's a little monkey, and everything's a jungle gym. Just ask the people who've seen him calmly playing on top of the bookshelves. But I've been really working with him to not climb/stand/bounce/insert verb here on the furniture. So tonight when he was hanging upside down over one arm of the couch, all I had to say was:

Me: William...
William: Stop abusing the furniture? Ok.

Followed by a little somersault off the couch.

How to Play "Guess Who"

by William

This is how you play Guess Who. There are cards of different people with their names under them. You pick one, and you have a big board with all the people on it. There's two boards, one for each person. They ask you a question like "Does your guy have white hair?" and if you say "No," they flip down all the guys on their board that have white hair. And then you ask a question like "Does your guy have a moustache?" and if they say "Yes." you flip down everyone else besides the guys that have moustaches. If the other team guy decides that he thinks he's found your one and he says, "Is your guy Chris?" and if you say "No." they flip down Chris. And if you say, "Is your guy Bill?" and if they say, "Yes." you win.

(Homeschool writing assignment. Have your child explain how to play his favorite game in no more than eight sentences.)

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

by William

"The Tower Treasure" is about detectives. The detectives names are Frank and Joe Hardy. And they're trying to arrest someone who stole the jewels from the tower and who also stole Chet's car. They tried to explore places to try to find the car. The person who stole the car stole the car before the jewels from the tower. The person who stole the treasure and the car was Red Jackley. He always wore red wigs. They found the car and the jewels.

(William's first book summary. The assignment was to condense a book into eight sentences, which was harder than it sounded!)

Eureka!

On our walk today:

William: Mom, you can't walk backwards and forwards at the same time.
Me: Nope. Sure can't.
William: I just discovered that. I'm trying to walk backwards and forwards at the same time, but it takes two legs to go one direction.

Run, Forrest, run!

William ran a mile today. He's run/walked a mile before with me, but this is the first time I've turned him loose at a track to pace himself and get himself through a mile. He didn't exactly make it--started too fast and got discouraged after finishing the first 1 1/2 laps. Of course he started out at an 8 min/mile pace, which is a bit ambitious for his first time. :) So he walked a bit and got a pep talk from me, and ended up finishing in 12:23.

He's actually beginning to take an interest in sports lately. He did a basketball clinic on Sunday with a former Spurs' player, and, while he didn't exactly stun anyone with his skills, he stuck with it all the way through. And he tried ice skating for the first time on Saturday night. Firsts are a big deal for him. He doesn't like trying new stuff, so I'm very "well pleased" that he's giving all these new things a shot. Now if I can just get him to try some vegetables.

Another recollection

by William

Last night I had a boys' night at Chuck E. Cheese's. I did what I was supposed to do--not get upset at my uncle who was taking me. When I was done playing all the games that I played, I had thirty tickets. I made a reciept out of them, and bought three lizards. And then my aunt gave me a receipt that had thirty tickets in it, and I was able to buy three more lizards. I didn't know that there was any lizards there until someone said, "I want three toy lizards." I couldn't find Jarek, so I had to climb up the big playground in there. But then I came down and saw that he was playing a game where he was supposed to be exploding airplanes.

Three couplets

by William


There was a person who had a pet dog,
And there was a lizard in a bog.

There was a pig
And someone said, "He's big."

Dr. Doolittle likes to talk
And take a walk.

(This is William's first foray into poetry. Once he found a formula that worked, I had a hard time trying to get him to mix it up a bit. He wanted to keep starting them all with "There was a person who had a pet..." I guess I've been reading him too many limericks. :) )

The Caldwell Zoo

by William

We went to the Caldwell Zoo. First we checked out birds. There were a few parrots and flamingos and ducks. Then we saw a baby rhino. We saw wildebeests, warthogs, elephants, antelope and zebra too. We saw turtles when we were coming into the reptile house. We saw a cool kind of skink that I like--broadhead skink. And also there were horned lizards, newts and a gila monster. The Caldwell Zoo is cool.

The End

An Unusual Pet by William

If I had a weird pet, it would be a monitor lizard. I would feed it what it likes to eat, and I would walk it every day. I'd keep it in my backyard so it could climb up trees, if it liked that, and swim, if it liked that. I would name it what it acted like. I kind of think a good name would be Sabotage because they like ambushing, and a sabotage is an ambush. If I ever bought a cat, I'd let the monitor chase the cat. To bring the monitor inside, I would fill its bowl up with the fresh food that it liked. I'd bring it to my zoo when I went to work. I would make sure that it didn't get out of its cage and into the building because that would scare someone. If it got out of its cage inside the building, I'd put the monitor inside the place where I keep the other monitors.

The End

(This was a school assignment dictated to me. The prompt was: "Suppose you owned an unusual pet. What would it be? What would you do with it?")

A Trip to the Zoo

There were komodo dragons, rock pythons and rhinos at this zoo. I liked the part where we looked at the komodo dragon and it was coming right at us flicking out its tongue like a pink fork. There was a cute tiger there. I forgot what kind it was.
I really liked seeing the rock python in there. He was big. I liked watching the crocodiles in there. There were some other interesting animals, like otters, the cutest mustelid that likes the water.

by William


A Recollection
Creative Expression week 10.

On a lighter note...

Puppies, babies and...chocolate.

Just had to get the poopy post off the top of my blog.

La la la la life goes on....

Poop.

Had the hearing today. The big one. The result was...well...not what we hoped to say the least. I'm kind of reeling, really, from the sheer lunacy of the ruling. These verses come to mind right now:

Psalm 89:6 -- How long, LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire?

Psalm 13:1-4 -- How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.

Psalm 22:1-2 -- My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

It's nice to know that it's ok to be upset and to talk to God honestly about it. But I'm so thankful that there are also these verses to go to.

Psalm 27:1-14 -- The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war may rise against me, in this I will be confident. One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD. Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.” Do not hide Your face from me; do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take care of me. Teach me Your way, O LORD, and lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the LORD!

I do believe that William and I will continue to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Now comes the waiting on the Lord and being of good courage part.

I literally pulled it out of his mouth.

I got tired of the loose but persistent tooth. And his gums were starting to look red. And he got tired of me chanting "Pull the tooth! Pull the tooth!" So...voila! William new's smile.

William gems from this week...

"Every time we ask Uncle Jonathan if we can watch Star Wars, his reply is no." He seems to be harboring some hard feelings here JB. :P

In a voice mail left for Jarek who was sick today: "Hi
Jarek. Just wondering how your fever's going and what the temperature is..."

At dinner tonight when I urged him to pull that super loose front tooth already! The thing's so loose it blows in the wind when he talks: "I'm not going to pull it. I'm going to wait until it's so loose that it literally falls out by itself."

I have to say I was particularly proud of, er, um, well-pleased with this correct usage of literally. For incorrect usages of literally, click here.

Oh the drama!

This conversation took place in the car just now. I lost my patience with William's incessant talk about getting a spotted tree monitor for a pet. I don't even know what it is, but it's a reptile...how good of a pet can it be?

Me: William! Please, babe. Give me a break with the monitor talk!
William: I've only been interested in monitors for a short time now. (Yes, my 7-yr old actually talks like this. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing.)
Me: Yes, but you've been talking about them non-stop for that entire short time. I don't really know anything about monitors, and I don't even like reptiles that much.
William: Because they're ugly looking??
Me: Yeah, that, and they're not very nice.

At this point I glance over at William and his face is turned away from me and he's crying. Feel free to roll your eyes along with me.

William: *whips his head back around, full of righteous indignation* And they're habitat is being destroyed, Mom! You don't have to be so grumpy!

Oh brother! Such drama from a 7 year old! Can't wait to hit those teen years.

I'm officially excited about the Daisy 5K on Sunday. I feel pretty confident that barring catastrophic injury I'll be able to break 40 minutes. I know, I know...the land speed records are in danger. And William is actually, after oooooh....three months of extensive brainwashing, getting excited-ish about the Kids' K portion of the day. I think he'll be really excited when he gets his finishers' medal.

I feel like I've used a disproportionate amount of apostrophes in this post. Which reminds me of this lovely little grammar tidbit I happened upon today while trying to explain dropped quotes to my mom. I especially like the bit about the bird poop.

So yeah...this is me trying to give CPR to my blog. I like the idea of a blog, but don't feel comfortable talking about anything of substance here anymore. So I guess that leaves running fluff and bird poop.

Rainy Days and Mondays

The green van is having problems. Sabbath before last the transmission went out as I was driving home from church. Then this morning I finally got to go pick it up, supposedly fixed, and it didn’t make it 10 miles down the road before it died again. Not the same kind of dead, but dead all the same. Even more dead, in fact. Before, it would at least, with much complaining, move at 20 miles an hour or so, but now it won’t move at all. The dying happened in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, and so suddenly that I didn’t actually make it all the way off of the road. Kind of scary to be partly on I-35 with the traffic whizzing by and the visibility about zero.

In other news, I’m not moving yet. I’ve signed up for 8 more months here. I’m happy.

OK...I've been allowing Crystal to blog the running sagas, but I have to do a blog happy dance here today because I just ran 4 miles!! I know this is not that important to most of the world, but I'm super excited. Sure, I stopped and walked a couple times, but 4 miles!! In 59 minutes. I know...turtles go faster...but still. No knee pain. No cardiac or respiratory arrest and neither of my legs fell off or cramped. So yippee! Of course I'm going to be really really sore tomorrow, I'm sure. But I'm still on that lovely endorphin high right now. :)

EDITED to add that William is the best cheerleader ever. I said, "William, I just ran 4 miles. Can you believe that? Pretty good right?" And he enthusiastically responded, "Not just good. AWESOME!!" :) That's my boy.

Creative Expression by William

Prompt: Suppose you owned an unusual pet. What would it be? What would you do with it? Ten sentences.

The oddest pet anyone has ever owned would be a bull shark. And the most strangest pet in the world would be a bull fish. They have horns. And the strangest pet in the world would be a big eared rabbit. The biggest pet I would get would be a bull shark, and they are cool. And you would have to feed it ten fish every day. And you would have to build an aquarium in your house. I would look at it. I would put it in the bathtub. I'd play with it--like dance with it.

The End

This conversation is brought to you by Captain Literal...

This week we did some early deleavening in the kitchen cabinets because the pest guy came to spray all the apartments in our building. We had to empty the cabinets and wipe them down (sounds like deleavening to me) and then we're not supposed to wipe them down afterward for six months! Does this sound gross to anyone else besides me? I just might have to violate that little injunction. Anyway...William and I had this conversation while putting everything back in the cabinets.

William: Why do we have so many pepper shakers?
Me: People have given them to us.
William: Why?
Me: I guess they're a fairly typical housewarming gift.
William: Pepper warms up your house??

My kid cracks me up.

On the way home from Church tonight William decided we should tell jokes:

Me: Um. Let me think of a joke. Ok. Knock knock.
William: Who's there?
Me: Banana.

(insert several bananas from me and increasingly exasperated banana whos from William)

Me: Knock knock.
William: (heavy sigh) Who's there?
Me: Orange.
William: Orange who?
Me: Orange you glad I didn't say banana.
William: (giggling) Okay. You can come in. (Makes an unlocking and opening the door sound.) My turn. What did the mackerel say to the salmon?
Me: I don't know.
William: Hey, salmon.

When I realized that was his punchline, it cracked me up. Which was unfortunate, because it encouraged him to make up three more jokes: "What did the mackerel say to the mackerel?" "What did the other mackerel say to the other mackerel?" "And what did the mackerel say to all the mackerels?" all with punchlines involving "Hey" and "mackerel." Goofy kid.

Cool field trip.

William and I took a field trip to the San Antonio Zoo today. It's a pretty cool zoo. I was actually surprised. William was sooooo excited when he found out there were rhinos there. Black rhinos even! There was much jumping. :)

Actually, the rhino exhibit ended up being really cool. You could get pretty close to them and I got some good pics. And! we got there just at the right time. The keeper was feeding them and letting them out of their stables, and you could tell she was tickled by William's high-volume enthusiasm. When she got done with her work, she came over to us and asked if we had any questions. She told us about each of the four rhinos they have and was just really nice. William almost exploded. :)

I got quite a few pics before my camera died. Stupid battery. It only lasts like 1 hour now before dying. Unfortunately, my williambear.net picture site is no more. I'm going to transfer all of that over to smbryce.com at some point, but that point is distant in the future. So for the time being, I'll probably just post pics on photobucket or some other such free online place-a-ma-bob.

As soon as we got home, William went to his desk and started drawing a picture of his zoo. That kid is animal crazy! :)

An Explanation by William

How to cook eggs:

1. Get the box of eggs out of the refrigerator.
2. Open the egg box and get some eggs out. Usually I like two.
3. Put the eggs you got out inside a pan with milk and water inside. I think?
4. And then crack the eggs.
5. And then pull them in half above the pan.
6. Then turn on the oven and put the pan on.
7. Then you eat it and enjoy it.

A Description by William

Assignment: Describe your house in eight sentences. (This is part of William's Language Arts curriculum. He is supposed to dictate to me, and I'd rather type than write.)

My house is on the third floor of our apartment. My house is very messy, but my favorite toy is very, very easy to find. I have an elephant and a bear--well, I barely play with any of them. My house has a back porch. In the playroom we're going to make a castle--well, at least sometime. There's five lights in the playroom. My front hallway is a little bit sandy. My bathroom almost always has a light off.

You Are Cookie Monster

Misunderstood as a primal monster, you're a true hedonist with a huge sweet tooth. You are usually feeling: Hungry. Cookies are preferred, but you'll eat anything if cookies aren't around. You are famous for: Your slightly crazy eyes and unusual way of speaking How you live your life: In the moment. "Me want COOKIE!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

I'm not sure that Cookie Monster would edit the spelling errors in a blogthings personality quiz (It originally said "usual way of speaking" and "life your life")...but hey...who am I to argue with science. Besides...I do have slightly crazy eyes and an unusual way of speaking. Not to mention the whole cookie thing. Chocolate chip if you please.

Captain Literal strikes again!

William: Mom, this is annoying me. Everyone says lions are the king of the jungle, but they don't LIVE in the jungle. They live in the SAVANNA. And ELEPHANTS are the king of the savanna, because they're the BIGGEST. It DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!

(Those of you who have talked with William will understand the use of caps. My kid doesn't know the meaning of monotone.)